You see, the Foreign Service of the United States has grown so unbelievably in the last twenty years, and the requirements for admission are so high, and yet an awful lot of the work, I'd say fully 50-percent of the work in the Foreign Service abroad, is really routine work. All this is something that no one has licked.... You get a certain amount of discontent. It's bad for morale.

You see, the Foreign Service of the United States has grown so unbelievably in the last twenty years, and the requirements for admission are so high, and yet an awful lot of the work, I'd say fully 50-percent of the work in the Foreign Service abroad, is really routine work. All this is something that no one has licked.... You get a certain amount of discontent. It's bad for morale.

In dealing with the Communists, remember that in their mind what is secret is serious, and what is public is merely propaganda.

[N]ine-tenths of the people who are in the Home Service don't want to go abroad. They are people who live in Washington and have gotten acquainted with the jungle of this town and know their way around.

A non-Communist premier with Communist ministers would be like a woman trying to stay half pregnant.